what am I doing now?

[scary_pigeon 0]

Hey!... good job guys!

Any news about the Mirage III and the dagger´s cockpit? And the Cyrano II radar of the Mirage IIIEA.

Some friends and I can wait for the release of a demo, best luck from Cordoba Argentina

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

my impression is that those cockpits are going well but probably are not lua scripted yet? I am uncertain sometimes of exact state of the project in areas that im not working on. hopefully dante will pop in and report on that. *sigh* if we had a studio i'd be able to go over and say, "what u up to?"

 

 

-

 

as for myself, The netcode continues to be buggy. As each bug is fixed - less obvious ones emerge. we seem to have cracked the bug relating to the server nolonger receiving updates. now what has become obvious is this odd bug: I log in, then dante logs in and I cant see his bullets, but he can see mine.

 

Some bugs are quite hard to track down when they are not easily reproducable as that fault doesnt occur when two clients are run on my PC.

[+Dante-JT 6]

my impression is that those cockpits are going well but probably are not lua scripted yet

 

 

The Mirage IIIEA cockpit is in early uv-mapping stages, it's so far the most hard cockpit to work to date - it's very detailed. I think I will have to reduce the complexity of the mesh in the progress to keep eficiency. The photographic coverage we have of the Mirage and Dagger cockpit is also good and comparable to that of the Pucara, so expect a similar result in the next weeks.

 

Yesterday Steve and I did a good test, all was fine except the bug mentioned above (of invisible bullets), but the in-game chat feature was solid and Steve even used fraps to record myself flying around while he was parked in the ground, all online. The radar is pretty usefull already and it helped me find where Steve was flying, giving me the HUD cue so we meet each other easily in the sim's world.

[scary_pigeon 0]

this nights test was to see if a fix to the problem we were having of bullets not appearing on each others comps worked - it did. it was related to this: the object spawns in by client instruction, then shortly after, the client arms the plane..

 

..between that time, my client running on same machine as server was quick enougth to grab that planes data before it was armed - before it had completely spawned in.

[PG_Raptor 0]

this nights test was to see if a fix to the problem we were having of bullets not appearing on each others comps worked - it did. it was related to this: the object spawns in by client instruction, then shortly after, the client arms the plane..

 

..between that time, my client running on same machine as server was quick enougth to grab that planes data before it was armed - before it had completely spawned in.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Heh... amazing how all that little stuff wreaks havoc on code. Keep up the good work!

[scary_pigeon 0]

cheers.

 

its my birthday next thursday - and it creates a sort of less than arbitary date - i'll be 27 soon be 30 :) (dante never seems to update my age on the website - im forever 25 hehe)

 

anyway this creates a date were i want to have some significant progress towards something more playable.

 

rightnow we can shoot each other down - but because of incompleteness, we'll be flying around in invisible planes or with bits missing like wings and stuff with no adverse effects on the flight behaviour - of course - this cant carry on!

 

today i wrote more netcode relating to position tweening. we had a half done tween process based on dead reckoning - but the positions you project from need to be tweened otherwise you get a teleport and glide effect - whereas we want a constant smooth but hopefully accurate transition.

[Wilko 0]

Keep up the great work

[scary_pigeon 0]

slowly but surely the demo approaches soon.

 

hit a bit of a rock recently code bugs. i think though in the next few days, our small dev team will be testing shooting each other down.

 

there is still much to do. yrrd who has joined us, and has been tasked with perfecting the fm, has so far not perfected it. And then there are millions of other little things to do.

 

I think though that what is left is millions of little things rather than big huge question mark, 'how on earth r we going to do that?' sort of items.

 

the amusing thing today was in frustration at the bugs i held out my code psychic hand and scrolled the text waiting for my hand to feel the bug beneith and i found in some maths relating to how much bytes to expect to receive in the net code - a missing set of bracket.

 

i find that in the later parts of this projects i have abandoned planning of code and being going on instinct. the main frustration though is that we all in this project must work for a living and not be yet professional 100% on it. distraction is an easy hazard for us I think - and I also expect that it is a similar problem that aflicts and slows down other projects. I just hope that by the time we release - we're not too dated and that it meets expectations.

Edited July 22, 2005 by scary_pigeon

[Shadowcat 0]

I just hope that by the time we release - we're not too dated and that it meets expectations.

If you focus on the behind-the-scenes stuff first and foremost and leave the bulk of the visual work for later, you'll do just fine.

 

But given that the last project like this came out in 1992, it would be a bit harsh to call Jet Thunder "dated" in any case :)

 

Edited July 27, 2005 by Shadowcat

[scary_pigeon 0]

well i found that screenshot of the old game kind of inspirational. the site of the warships on the move, looks simple but purposeful.

 

project wise, still stuck on the net code. the particular bug is a message related thing were sometimes chat messages/game events get lost - some server bug.

 

my most recent attempt to fix this was to simply the code - the net code i created was in some ways i think far too adventurous - with aspects of future projects in mind like World War III online- massively multiplayer war game stuff.

 

the more complicated something is - the more there is to go wrong - so now in debugging i bipass some of the clever but potential faulty stuff and fall back on simpler methods: the bug appears to possible occur around some bit of code relating to the decisions on what messages to pass on to which clients for example: one client holds the trigger down - there server learns of this. then must decide who, out potentially hundrends of clients need know about that event. this cuts down on bandwidth when there are many players spread over a large virtual terrain; i've fallen back on simply sending everybody the message.

 

it seems to work, but so it did seem to work before - a sporadic bug that i've spent weeks sulkingly trying to pin down - to point of a sort of dispair where I give for a day and have some fun:

 

i built a mount for a joystick to stop it wobbling over the table. I enjoyed the physical effort of cutting through the thick planks.

 

i've also been making balsa airplanes telling myself that it is sort of project related :-)

[Incendiary Lemon 0]

well i found that screenshot of the old game kind of inspirational. the site of the warships on the move, looks simple but purposeful.

 

Something to be said for those clean lines :) Your screen shots really look fine, I don't think your going to get into any trouble. Allied Force has done quite well for Lead Pursuit, I think thats very encourging especially compared to LOMACs poor showing at retail.

Edited August 1, 2005 by Incendiary Lemon

[EAGLE 18 FLT 0]

Do I see the BF2 logo to the left of the coke Cans?

[A4-AR 0]

I think you should first make the simulator complete and playable and just then try to make it work online. For example... I don´t want to fly online, I prefer doing the campaigns and I guess I am not the only one. see you guys

[Bard 0]

I think you should first make the simulator complete and playable and just then try to make it work online. For example... I don´t want to fly online, I prefer doing the campaigns and I guess I am not the only one. see you guys

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

not to give you grief but tacking on multiplayer at the end is the WRONG way to do it. LOMAC 1.0 is a classic example of this being done and the multiplayer code was horrible.

 

both single player and multiplayer will have shared requirements, and to cater to one first without catering to the second at the same time often leads to wasted effort and developmental issues.

 

much better to get this sorted out on paper then leap into the coding.

Edited August 2, 2005 by Bard

[Bard 0]

i find that in the later parts of this projects i have abandoned planning of code and being going on instinct. the main frustration though is that we all in this project must work for a living and not be yet professional 100% on it.

 

resist the temptation to not plan ;)

 

PLEASE :D

[A4-AR 0]

not to give you grief but tacking on multiplayer at the end is the WRONG way to do it. LOMAC 1.0 is a classic example of this being done and the multiplayer code was horrible.

 

both single player and multiplayer will have shared requirements, and to cater to one first without catering to the second at the same time often leads to wasted effort and developmental issues.

 

much better to get this sorted out on paper then leap into the coding.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

ok cool, It´s not my intencion to attack your ways of doing things but I´m anxious for the demo =)

Did Jet thunder actually appeard in canal 13´s news report from Buenos Aires this week?

[Shadowcat 0]

Moreover, it sounds to me as if they're doing things the best way possible... by making the single player game use the same communication protocols as the multiplayer game, you don't end up with two separate sets of code for handling the two game types. I figure this means there's a much better chance of ending up with great features like co-operative multiplayer in the campaign.

 

The downside is that all the network debugging is necessary even for single-player.

 

The upside is that the network code should be pretty solid, rather than a cross-your-fingers-and-hope sort of affair.

[Bard 0]

Moreover, it sounds to me as if they're doing things the best way possible... by making the single player game use the same communication protocols as the multiplayer game, you don't end up with two separate sets of code for handling the two game types. I figure this means there's a much better chance of ending up with great features like co-operative multiplayer in the campaign.

 

The downside is that all the network debugging is necessary even for single-player.

 

The upside is that the network code should be pretty solid, rather than a cross-your-fingers-and-hope sort of affair.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

that's the way i see it too.

 

multiplayer can not afford to be tacked on as it's simply integral to the whole design.

 

a well designed, well executed sim - even if it's a bit thin on actual 'content' creates a life of it's own through community effort. In addition it's the basis of further work later. The design and the implementation are the hard work, once you've done that expanding content is relatively painless.

[+Dante-JT 6]

We see that way, multiplayer is very tricky to get it right and some other jet sims usually just drop it at the end of the project hoping to fix it later in patches.

 

So we can say that, at the moment, about 2 years short of any Gold release of JT, we have it working online more or less like the other jet sims around... Of course it is still not as solid as the IL2 series as they have a solid and polished netcode at this point.

 

The biggest problem is that we have only the Sea Harriers in multiplayer, so our tests are always myself (in Brazil) in a Sea Harrier against Steve (in UK) in his Sea Harrier.

Sometimes Steve places a drone A-4 Skyhawk (AI) but we still can't jump into the cockpit of an Skyhawk for example. It's just a simple Sea Harrier vs. Sea Harrier afair at the moment. Pretty silly, as we usually hover around in front of each other exchanging cannon fire to see if all is fine, if pieces of the planes are detaching correctly when severely damaged and all that. When one of the players "die", the client usually closes in his side. So, we got no respawn stuff/select spawn airbase sorted yet but Steve planned all this carefully early on so soon it will be working too.

 

I am also finishing the MirageIIIEA cockpit, still a lot to do apparently, but the hardest part was to unwrap all into the uvw space to paint the textures, this is ready, now it's just a matter of painting all and then, setting the instruments and avionics in the Lua sub-system. It should be added also at the game's database, as we seem to have only Sea Harrier, Skyhawk and a couple of weapons as game entities now.

[scary_pigeon 0]

2 more years till gold release? i dont think it will take anything like that long. when the demo is done, i see mainly only content creation to follow and much of that could come in free patches like IL2.

 

quite a bit more is there that is not active yet in the net code -for example spawn points - these are lua scripted in the server mission script - these are then downloaded and any of these can be selected..

 

..its just we're currently running in an interfaceless test shell so hidden from dante's view is the download of the spawn points, the spawn selection, the unique arming process, etc.

 

next important thing now is to finish of the network missile thing so not just AI can fire missiles, then add terrain - and then we've got a demo basically - in particular, when the mirage cockpit is finished and the luascripts for that cockpit programmed.

Edited August 4, 2005 by scary_pigeon

[Bard 0]

We see that way,  multiplayer is very tricky to get it right and some other jet sims usually just drop it at the end of the project hoping to fix it later in patches.

 

So we can say that, at the moment, about 2 years short of any Gold release of JT, we have it working online more or less like the other jet sims around...    Of course it is still not as solid as the IL2 series as they have a solid and polished netcode at this point.

 

The biggest problem is that we have only the Sea Harriers in multiplayer, so our tests are always myself (in Brazil) in a Sea Harrier against Steve (in UK) in his Sea Harrier.

 

well you know where to find me dante ;)

[Shadowcat 0]

heh... I was really expecting a couple of years to completion as well (among other things, I had thought that the campaign was not yet under serious development, for instance?), so I'm sure we can look back on this thread when the sim is complete and see which of the devs was right :) (the winner can owe the loser a beer, or something :)

 

That Mirage cockpit looks gorgeous, btw.

[scary_pigeon 0]

indeed, so far in such discussion dante has continued to be right -3 years or so ago i was saying, "ahh, only another 6 months till completion." I tend to be highly optimistic about such things.

[Bard 0]

indeed, so far in such discussion dante has continued to be right -3 years or so ago i was saying, "ahh, only another 6 months till completion." I tend to be highly optimistic about such things.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

you can never have enough time to polish.

 

that's what makes a good product a great product.

[scary_pigeon 0]

today i've been enjoying my new monitor - a 19" one with higher resolution than previous - its pleasant as when coding you can see much more source - less time consuming scrolling of text occurs.

 

and as for flying - its suddenly a lot more fun. my favourate game at the moment remains the imperfect but playable wwii online. it is nice to be able to see more easily infantry scurrying around the ground.

 

so now we have guided missiles firable from human players - unlike bullets, they currently do no damage. i think the way to program this is to go for a bit of conformity in the code and say there are to be such thing as High Explosive events as just another message to pass round. this should mean that the same sort of thing can apply to bombs or whatever.

[scary_pigeon 0]

for the sake of properganda mainly - we worked today on graphical stuff. still in the test shell though:

 

http://thunder-works.com/images/missiletests5.avi

 

this is a movie of a missile hitting some object on the ground. What we were seeking to do was to put some meaningful placeholder effects for missile trails and explosions.

 

the game engine issue that is most prominant now is solving a client crash when missile are fired over the internet. When that is done we'll be putting back in the landscape - most likely a new approach.